Re: What's your #1 anxiety about LF (in your personal life)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tin Can
Not all Stoners are failures, some even grow out of it
My father told me, you can drink when you are young or old but not both
I found this inspirational and have
Jesus Just Left Chicago
I gave up alcohol, permanently when I was 57. My job had been "internationalized" I had spent over 5 years training PhDs from China and India how to do my job. Then I and several thousand other Americans were let go (10 years ago this June). I had always lived with the theory to live a paid for life. So I just went home. Spent a couple years drinking beer and watching Netflix. Quit drinking, on my own, I had a very wise woman therapist, she just listened, and would reinforce my good decisions. I was lucky to find a part time job with some fellow castaways, paid well. I retired from it on my own volition 3 years back, still friends with the management. I have been lucky that I have the camera and darkroom hobby. These big old cameras and enlargers have given me a volition that I love.
Re: What's your #1 anxiety about LF (in your personal life)?
Re: What's your #1 anxiety about LF (in your personal life)?
Last weed smoked in the summer of 1982...with a son (now deceased) of one of the greatest (I think the greatest) photographers ever. Will not share his name as I've not been in touch with his surviving kin - but I've always felt so very blessed by that experience!
But pot...nowadays? One hit wonder (as in, one hit and wonder what happened to the last eight hours!)...while in "the old days" one could do a bit of "circle time" among close friends and have it be a meaningful/bonding, actually memorable (and rememberable) experience - with much wonderfully convoluted philosophy shared, lots of laughs...and then be able to get up and carry on afterwards!
How I miss those days...when social intelligence/truly intimate verbal communication was still somewhat intact...before everyone started staring downwards into their iPhones!
Re: What's your #1 anxiety about LF (in your personal life)?
I looked at the list and didn't see any anxieties until I realized that as a Kodak shooter (Portra and Tri-X) that Kodak going out of business makes me anxious. Sure, I could shoot something else for B&W, but color neg? I'd be hosed. As I'm starting to get back into B&W I set up a contact printing station in the bathroom and my anxiety now is that Lodima may be out of the game (almost all sizes sold out) and Adox Lupex is the last silver chloride paper standing. I guess I'm happy there's one left. But yeah, the future of analog photo materials makes me anxious.
I've had so many encounters with security guards, weirdos, law enforcement, border patrol, gang members, what have you, that I just consider that stuff part of the photo experience. A few years ago I was shooting in my old neighborhood in Detroit (now burned down) and a black Escalade came to a screeching halt and backed up to just behind me. I kept adjusting the camera as these guys started yelling out from the car. I walked over and saw four guys, all strapped with pistols and a cloud of pot smoke coming out of their SUV. They asked what I was doing and I explained; how I grew up here and it was a shame these neighborhoods were falling apart, etc. They agreed and told me some areas where there was some cool graffiti and I should take pictures of that and put that out as a coffee table book. They all agreed they'd buy something like that. I said I'd check it out and thanked them and they drove off. I love encounters like that. I had a similar situation in New Mexico where I was trespassing off a road near the border and I hear a car screeching to a halt and backing up and it was a Border Patrol truck. I kept messing with my camera figuring I'd pretend I didn't know I was trespassing. The agent comes running up, "Hey, I'm a photographer, too!" Then we had a long conversation about photography and the border situation, etc. He told me that the skies down there were great for astro-photography and I should get into that. Interesting situations, but there's always a little anxiety around people carrying guns.